Forestway Studio home of Rick Sally & Jo's New Forest crafts

Hi, welcome to Rick and Sally's web page. Our page is not to sell our creations, as these are hobbies, but to enable us to meet and chat with others with similar interests. We would like to hear from you so please send us an E-mail. We live in a small village on the edge of the New Forest called TIPTOE. It is situated between Bournemouth and Southampton (20 miles to each) with one bus each day to the local town of New Milton (six miles). This is not very convenient if you can't drive. Since the Post Office closed in April 2008 the village has a community coffee morning every wednesday to enable the "gossip" to continue! There used to be five shops in the village when I was a boy and the buses ran every 30minutes so much for progress. We do have a school which caters for the 4-11 year olds also a C of E church and a Baptist Chapel. The area is a good place for horse riding and the population of horses and ponies is probably greater than the humans.

I am a retired qualified carpenter and joiner and Master Builder with forty five years experience. I have lived and worked all my life in the New Forest working with many different types of timber.

My work over the years has been wide ranging from general carpentry and joinery to constructing and repairing wood and fabric aircraft. Flying being a life long interest.

My introduction to carving rocking horses came from being persuaded to make one for a client's grand children. Finding the experience very fulfilling and needing something to fill some of my time I decided to continue to craft a limited number as a self funding hobby. My latest interest has been constucting a couple of crank organs designed by John Smith. These have been recieved with great interest and we have been asked to attend a few local functions with them.

My wife Sally is a learning support assistant involved with craft classes for adults with special needs. Her spare time is spent with our grandchildren, gardening and painting from which she produces cards, notelets, place mats and bookmarkers. Each year we hold two open studio events at home - one in May (The New Forest Art Trail) and one in August (Hampshire Artists Open Studios).